


waves

by mywordsflyup



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, Pre-Relationship, Winter in Hieron Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-26 00:10:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13845936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mywordsflyup/pseuds/mywordsflyup
Summary: It's a very green place and they're trying to find their place in it.





	waves

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a million years behind on Twilight Mirage so of course I'm back on that WiH bullshit. 
> 
> Spoilers for the Winter in Hieron ending. They live in a sword now??

When everything is said and done, Hella finds herself wandering the streets of an unfamiliar town - for the first time in a long time without urgency. In many ways, it still feels like a dream. The strange languid quality of Samol’s house. The sharp cut of everything else. Where nothing made sense, just a handful of events without the string to connect them, and at the same time, perfect clarity in every action. 

 

She still feels it, somewhere in the back of her mind. The haziness that came with it. 

 

She’d be a fool to trust it. This peace and calm. This beauty that asks nothing in return. 

 

It’s almost a relief to know that somewhere in the cracks, Adelaide is hiding, brooding. It’s just a matter of time now until Hella needs to deal with the consequences of that particular decision. 

 

She’s still torn about the implications of that. 

 

But for now, perhaps it’s best to focus on the things in front of her. The clear and tangible. The never-wavering clarity. Adaire. Sometimes Hella thinks nothing in the world could ever be as real as her. Certainly nothing in this one can. 

 

“If you keep staring at me like that, I’ll get up and leave,” Adaire tells her without looking up from the parchment in front of her. It’s a map, or at least the beginning of one. Hella managed to take quick look when Adaire had her back turned. 

 

“I’m not staring,” Hella says and leans back in her chair, keeping her eyes on Adaire. 

 

Finally, a pause. Hella can see her raising an eyebrow from across the room. “You have a strange definition of staring then.” She wipes at something with the pad of her thumb, smudging some charcoal into the shape of a mountain range. As easy as that. 

 

For the briefest moment, Hella wonders what Adaire’s thumb would leave on her. If she pressed it into her skin with just as much care and confidence. A bruise she’d wear proudly. Something real and visible and hers. 

 

Adaire is right. She is staring. 

 

So she keeps her eyes on the map instead, on Adaire’s hands as they work. Confident. Every line, every shape with absolute certainty. The paths of the city she maps out might be new but drawing them is as familiar as the back of her own hand. 

 

“What are you even doing here?” Adaire asks after a moment of silence and there’s the small thrill of victory somewhere in the back of Hella’s mind. 

 

“Do I need a reason?” 

 

Adaire pauses once more and this time she actually does look up, one eyebrow raised. “You’re hiding,” she says. “That’s new.” 

 

“I’m not hiding.”

 

“We really need to talk about the concept of words having specific meanings…” Adaire picks up her pencil again and taps it against the map. Once, twice. “I don’t mind you staying. But I do mind the staring.” 

 

Hella shrugs. If this was any other time, any other place, she’d keep her hands busy with her sword. Cleaning it, sharpening it. Training, if she felt too restless for anything else. But here… 

 

Here, she keeps her hands in her lap and her eyes on Adaire.

  
  
  
  
  


 

 

There’s almost a routine to it. 

 

Hella wakes early, even here. She trains, even when there are no more armies to fight. She eats breakfast, usually alone until Adaire comes downstairs - her hair already impeccable in her braid and sleep still clinging to the rest of her. There’s coffee, strong and black and desperately needed. They don’t talk until Adaire is on her second cup and tells her where she wants to go that day. 

 

“I think I’ll go south today. I want to sketch the coast line.” 

 

There’s never a “we” but after a while, Hella assumes it’s implied. 

 

She doesn’t dream of Adelaide anymore. And while it makes for a healthier sleep, it still feels strange to wake in the morning without the sound of her laughter in her ear and the taste of her on her lips. 

 

Sooner or later, she will come and wreck Hella in a completely different way. Somedays, Hella thinks perhaps that day will never come. Hopes it doesn’t come. And that might be the most novel thing of all. 

 

The sun is high in the sky by the time they leave the house. (The real sun? Another sun? Who knows these days?) It’s warmer here than she remembers Hieron to be. There’s pleasant breeze coming in from the sea, just cool enough to soften the midday heat. It’s too warm for armor, if Hella is completely honest, and she’s taken off as much of it as she dares. Which, as Adaire is happy to point out, isn’t a lot. 

 

It’s definitely too warm for Adaire’s gloves and cape and abundance of skirts. Hella still can’t get used to seeing her like this, her shoulders and arms bare, thin silk skirt gently swaying in the breeze. She always thought Adaire looked fancy but this is… something else. 

 

There’s a thin strip of sandy beach separating the cliffs and the waves below but Adaire decides not to climb down the narrow stairs and to use the vantage point of the high cliffs instead. She brought parchment and charcoal and gets to making a rough sketch of the coast line as soon as they arrive. 

 

Hella knows better than to disrupt her work and watches the waves below instead. They don’t crash against the cliffs here but break on some tall boulders a little bit further out. Almost like they had been placed there. Almost as if by design. 

 

Hella figures one can appreciate something and detest it at the same time. 

 

“What do you think lies on the other side?” Adaire suddenly asks into the silence. 

 

When Hella turns to her she finds her staring out to sea, the parchment forgotten in her hand. “The other side?” 

 

“Of the ocean, I guess.” 

 

“I… haven’t thought about it.” 

 

Adaire gives her look, considering her for a moment before turning back to the sea. “I have.”

 

“The way we came here…”

 

A smile this time, sly and familiar. “Should I stab you and see where you end up?” 

 

Hella scoffs but doesn’t answer. She always thought there was a sort of circularity to things. That despite all the chaos, there was a rhythm to it. An order of sorts. 

 

It started with a sword…

 

“You want to leave.” It’s not a question. 

 

Something in Adaire’s posture becomes hard and unyielding. “Don’t you?” 

 

“I don’t know.” It’s the truth and Hella doesn’t mind saying it. “This place is very…” She makes a gesture with her hand, vague and insufficient. But Adaire seems to understand. 

 

“Yeah, I know.” Adaire sighs. “Maybe I’m just trying to find something to keep busy.” She smiles as if at a private joke. “What else am I going to do?” 

 

Another silence. Below, the waves break too early and gently roll up the sandy shore. 

 

“I came for Hadrian,” Hella says after a moment. She hasn’t seen him in days. He’s with Samothes most of the time now, part of something she can’t quite wrap her head around. Or perhaps doesn’t want to. 

 

“And you will stay for him?” There’s no sharp edge to Adaire’s tone but Hella still fears she might cut herself on the question. 

 

“Who knows,” she says without taking her eyes off the horizon. “I think my priorities lie elsewhere these days.” 

 

She can feel Adaire’s gaze on her, sees the sharp turn of her head from the corner of her eye. Catching Adaire off guard is no easy feat. 

 

Some part of Hella wishes Adaire would pick up the thread of that loose thing they’ve woven in the space between them over these last few weeks. Some other part, getting quieter every day, wishes she’d just tear it to shreds. 

 

There’s danger in this strange and fragile thing, those strings stitched to her side. Filling all the spaces where her sword used to be.

 

“We should go to the port tomorrow,” Adaire says, her voice calm and even. “I’ve been meaning to map that district.” She pauses. “I hear they have boats.”

 

Hella looks at her. “Fishing boats.”

 

Adaire shrugs and picks up her parchment and charcoal again. “It’s a start.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on Tumblr at [damnable-rogue](http://damnable-rogue.tumblr.com/) or on Twitter [@mywordsflyup](https://twitter.com/mywordsflyup/).


End file.
